Changing the way people think about disabilities

Jeff Lee, Vancouver Sun05.14.2012

Former Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan, here with Prime Minister Stephen Harper, helped change the views of many around the world toward people with disabilities when he twirled the Olympic flag around in his wheelchair at the Turin Olympics in 2006.

Long before Sam Sullivan whipped the Olympic flag around his wheelchair at the closing of the 2006 Turin Winter Games, he was already a symbol to Canadians of the great strides people with disabilities have made in the last four decades.

But as the quadriplegic mayor of Vancouver, that lone act of accepting the flag from Inter-national Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge - and twirling it around in a special holder attached to his wheel-chair - sent a message around the world with each snap of the fabric.

"When you have someone like Mr. Sullivan in a prominent role on the international stage, at the Olympics for example, it serves to alter public perceptions about disability," said April D'Aubin, a research analyst with the Council of Canadians with Disabilities. "The typical discourse on disability is dominated by medicalized notions of disability. When you see someone like Mr. Sullivan at the Olympics, it tends to recalibrate peoples' thinking."

If there is anything that Sullivan has sought to do over most of his adult life, it is exactly that: change the way people think, particularly those who themselves live with a disability.

As that thinker, Sullivan has been asked by his friend Rick Hansen, another person who uses a wheelchair, to be one of the final members in the 25th Anniversary Relay celebration of Hansen's Man In Motion world tour.

On May 21, the second-to-last day of the relay, Sullivan will roll his wheelchair down Broadway Street. The following day, Hansen's tour will conclude at BC Place with 18-year-old Amanda Magyar of St. Albert, Alta. as the final medal bearer.

Sullivan, 53, and Hansen, 54, have known each other since the 1980s and they share some similarities. They both suffered catastrophic back injuries in their teens: Hansen when he was 15, Sullivan when he was 19. They both sought to be more active and - along with another disabled luminary, Terry Fox - were involved in promoting disabled sports at a time when disability issues weren't generally on the public's radar.

But Sullivan said he can't compare himself to Hansen, who he says fundamentally altered the way the public thinks about people with disabilities. Hansen even had an impact on his life as Sullivan wrestled with depression and anxiety over his own future in a wheelchair.

"I think Rick was a seismic event. He moved the whole world. I think things I have done have happened within that world movement, but it was his major shift that made it happen," Sullivan said in a recent interview at his Yale-town apartment.

"He made disability not a bad word, almost sexy in a way. That a guy like him could be such an athlete clearly captured peoples' imagination. I don't know, it is very possible that I wouldn't have got to be the mayor of Vancouver if it wasn't for him."

Sullivan said he differed from Hansen in a notable way.

"You could say that Rick took the route of dealing with the core problem, spinal injury, and finding a cure. And you could say I took a different route; let's realize the cure's not coming really fast and let's find ways to live full lives," Sullivan said. "Rick has been about quality of life as well, but his main institutional efforts have been in the area of spinal cord research."

Whether it was founding the Disabled Sailing Association of B.C. or getting together a team of engineers who voluntarily design adaptive products and devices, Sullivan saw in his own skiing accident an opportunity to try to show others how to get on with their own lives.

"My efforts were never about advocacy. They were about get-ting on with life. Going sailing as a paraplegic wasn't just a recreational activity, it was a statement," he said.

Jane Dyson, executive director of the B.C. Coalition of Persons with Disabilities, said "Sam Sullivan has been a great innovator in developing projects and programs that help to increase people with disabilities' ability to live independently."

But she said that seminal moment when Sullivan mounted the stage at Stadio Olimpico in Turin, Italy and accepted the Olympic Flag on behalf of Vancouver changed attitudes internationally.

"I think from an international perspective those images of him doing that was an enormous step forward in raising awareness for countries where people with disabilities may be still struggling," she said.

Sullivan is now retired from active politics, thanks to the implosion of the Non-Partisan Association and the emergence of Mayor Gregor Robertson's Vision Vancouver party. But he's still tackling important public policy issues through salons and conferences. The next one he is hosting is on urban land issues on June 6, and through a roster of inter-national experts he's hoping to change the way people think about dense cities.

And yet he still thinks of his achievements in very personal ways. "For me, the single biggest achievement in my life is getting out of bed by myself," he said.

The Sun is publishing a series of stories to mark the completion this month of the Rick Hansen 25th anniversary relay tour.

Saturday: Living with spinal cord injuries, then and now.

TODAY: Former Vancouver mayor Sam Sullivan talks about his injury and accessibility issues.

TUESDAY: Profile of relay participant Steve Pollock.

WEDNESDAY: A special tabloid section with details about the relay route in the Lower Mainland, stories and photos.

THURSDAY: A new app is among the innovations making life easier for people with spinal cord injuries.

FRIDAY: A look at Thermal Drive - the steepest and most difficult incline on the relay route - and profile of relay participant Don Alder.

SATURDAY: Medical writer Pamela Fayerman looks at research in the field.

TUESDAY, MAY 22: Profile of relay participant Doris Rohla.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 23: Complete coverage of the end of the relay.

ONLINE: The Sun does not publish on Sunday, May 20 or on Victoria Day, Monday, May 21. Coverage of the relay can be found online over the holiday weekend at vancouversun.com/ rickhansen. The site also features videos and photo galleries.

Changing the way people think about disabilities

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